'Pepper, what we do?'
'Well, sir, got to start over. Got to run a perimeter until my pups can find the true scent, then we be off.'
The sheriff knew this would take hours: he and his party and the dogs inscribing a large, slow circle around the compound until one of the dogs came up with a Sam-smell unaffiliated with this riot of Sam smell here.
Then the hunt would begin in earnest.
'We'll get him, Sheriff,' Opic cried. 'Goddamn, I know we will!' they ran out of loops of rope too early.
'Goddammit,' said Earl.
'What?'
'We're ahead of schedule.'
It was still dark in the woods. Around them loomed the shapes of trees rearing up, which men with undisciplined imaginations might have seen as monsters assaulting them, or foreshadowings of impending doom. But Sam didn't have enough imagination to let run wild, and Earl was too locked into the absolutely necessary. Though a flicker of dawn showed behind them, the sun was still more than half an hour away.
'That's good, isn't it?' said Sam, breathing hard.
'Nah, it's bad. Means we just sit here till it's light enough to take a compass reading, goddammit.'
'You can't?'
'No, sir. Can't see far enough to set a compass reading, shoot an azimuth. Got to sit here till I can make out a landmark half a mile ahead.'
'We're hours ahead of them, and they can't bring any horses in here.'
'You'd be surprised how hard men can move when they're motivated. And that sheriff's got plenty of motivation. He's been humiliated in his own little world, and he don't want that getting out, ' everything he has is based on the idea that he is the toughest, smartest, meanest sumbitch in the territory. Seen it in my father, same goddamn mule-pride craziness.
He will come after us both barrels, and now we're stuck just sitting here for a half an hour. How you holding up?'
'Ah. Okay. I've got a blister on my foot.'
'Got bandages and some aspirin at my goods cache, but that's still a few miles ahead. That'll be some help.'
'Good. I didn't wear the right shoes for a hike.'
They both looked at Sam's leather brogues from Brooks Brothers in St.
Louis, a smooth, beautiful shoe in rich mahogany, a successful man's shoe, and so out of place in the woods it was almost laughable.
'You just keep on pumping,' Earl said. 'You do that, I'll have you home to your kids in two days.'
'The hell with my kids. I just want to see Connie Longacre.'
'She is some gal '
'Earl, an experience like this, gets a man to thinking, and I '
'Save it, Mr. Sam. Not for now. Save your breath. You'll need every little bitty piece of it before this here thing is run out.'
In twenty minutes Earl found just enough light to shoot his azimuth to a terrain feature, and they were off again, and an hour after that found Earl's goods cached out of sight behind a log, in some high, dry grass.
Earl unscrewed his canteen and Sam took a good long draft. Earl got clean, dry socks out of his pack, and a bandage, and Sam took off his shoes, threw away the socks, bandaged his foot and pulled on the dry socks, which, being thicker, fit not quite so well in the tight, sodden shoes.
'That's okay,' said Earl, 'they'll loosen, you'll be fine.'
Then he reached further into his pack and pulled out a.45 automatic, which had been worked on a few years back: it had a larger than usual rear sight welded to the receiver and some kind of shelf on the safety.
'Here. This is for you.'
'Earl, I can't accept that. I cannot kill to get away. That invalidates anything I have ever stood for, which is the law.' 'Mr. Sam,' said Earl, as he reached further into the dry grass to pull out his Winchester '95 carbine, 'do you see much in the way of law out here? We are on our own, and no law's going to help us.'
'Earl, I know you to be a moral man, a decent man, a good man. They say you are the best policeman in the state, and I know in the war you done fine work for our side. But I must say it amazes me how quickly and well you convert to the other side. It's as if your great gifts for action, well-conceived thought, for capability beyond all men, could go either way. I hope your boy grows up to be the straight and narrow you, and if you have another son, I hope he doesn't grow up to walk the crooked, violent road.'
'Are you ready?' Earl said, returning the un taken pistol to his pack.
'Earl, you cannot kill with that rifle. Kill a man and you have crossed over.'
'I will not kill except to save you, Mr. Sam. Except a dog. I may have to kill a goddamned dog or two. That I will not enjoy, but if it has to happen, it will.'
And that was when they heard, far off and scratchy, the sound of the hounds.
'My, my,' said Earl. 'I do believe they are still in the hunt.'
The dogs had something.
'The pups got '. Yes sir, got one of ' treed.'
The pitch of their barking changed. It was not the unfocused yipping of the tracking animals who made noise to keep themselves amused and because it was their way. It was focused, ferocious, and ' intense.
As they came into a clearing, they all saw them gathered.
'Yes sir, by God, got a one of ' treed, you can see, ha, goin' to git that'.umbitch, yes, sir, oh, them wunnerful doggies!' cried Pepper, his throat phlegmy with glee.
The hounds circled a large pine, three on point, the other two trying to leap up the trunk, snarling fiercely. Only the big blue was apart, as if not sanctioning this development.
'Okay, fellows,' yelled the sheriff, 'now you git around ' and be care?'
One shot sent a Winchester bullet blowing through the clusters of pine needles, and then they all opened up, shot after shot after shot laying into the tree, puffing it with green haze as the bullets ripped through.
Dust and pulverized bark rose from the tree, a limb hit precisely tumbled off under its own weight.
'Cease fire, goddammit!' yelled Sheriff Leon, and one by one the men stopped firing.
'Take cover, and keep the tree covered, goddammit. Just wait and see what you bagged.'
The men scurried to cover, and the dogs, who had scattered at the first reports, reassembled under the tree and recommenced trying to leap and nip at it. The sheriff waited another three minutes, then slowly drew his Smith.38/44 Heavy-Duty.
'Y'all cover me.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Opic, you don't be shootin' me, you hear?'
'Yes, sir,' replied Opic.
The sheriff slid on the angle toward the tree, and as a veteran of several gun battles?he'd worked on the New Orleans police force before being cashiered for corruption back in 1932, at which time he'd started his new career as a prison guard at Thebes, which led ultimately to this position?he knew what he was doing. Keeping the gun out before him aggressively, his finger caressing the trigger, he at last ducked under the skirt of boughs and pointed upward to see what he could see.
'Well,' he finally said, when he emerged, 'why'n't you boys come see what you have killed.'
The deputies raced to the tree.
About ten feet up, hanging on a sheared-off limb and surrounded by the pock and puncture marks of too many rifle bullets, they could see two black socks hanging limply.
'You killed that lawyer's socks,' said the sheriff. 'Pity he ain't in them.'
'THEY are truly a disciplined bunch,' said Sam, when a mile or so behind them the firing eventually stopped. 'You were right. They attacked my socks. They were fancy socks, too. I don't suppose I'll ever get them back.' 'You never know,' said Earl. 'These backwoods fellows, they don't like to waste a thing. Probably someone named Billy or Ray Ed or something is trying ' on right now. You could come down in ten years or so when everybody's forgot all about this, and probably find them on his feet on Sunday at the meeting.'
The pines showed no particular tendency toward abatement, though now and then they'd come to a logged
